Pregnant & milk is nearly gone. How do I get this 24 mo to sleep?!

[rielly]

Hi there,

Hoping people can share their stories of how they transitioned from nursing to sleep at night to just " going down." This is proving very frustrating for both my daughter and me. She nurses for ten minutes max before her nap, and usually goes down easily enough, but at night she's giving me a really, really hard time. Tonight she nursed for ten minutes, asked to go in her crib, bopped around there for about twenty minutes, asked to be rocked, let me rock her for twenty minutes and then it was back in the crib for another twenty minutes. At the 70 minute mark, I had to call in reinforcements (DH), who rocked her to sleep in a mere eight minutes.

I ordered a gloworm, because I have heard these can help at bedtime, but I'm skeptical. How did you other moms make this transition? I am still nursing once during the night and maybe twice to three times during the day, but this bedtime session has just become something I dread, now that my milk is nearly gone (and I'm only 11 weeks,). DD has never taken a bottle at bedtime, or had a pacifier. I've tried the bottle thing to no avail; maybe I should try a bottle with water, though? That's what she tends to ask for, but I'm giving it to her from a sippy cup. Anyway, please let me know what you think....how long will this last?! TIA.

[Quinalla]

I think having DH take over putting her to bed for a time might make sense. She knows she isn't going to BF with him there, so it may be easier for her to adjust to no nursing at bedtime. Is that an option?

[rielly]

Thanks! We tried this tonight, and yes, it seemed to work! Do you have any experience with how long it will take to transition back to the normal "momcentric" routine? My husband travels quite a bit for work, so he's not always available.

[phathui5]

Have you tried just rocking her to sleep at bedtime? I know that the bedtime nursing is one that a lot of us hang onto because it makes getting them to sleep easier, but if it isn't working for you, you can drop it.

[rielly]

Yes, sadly we are essentially dropping this session. She still asks for milk before bed, so she nurses for 20 minutes (not sure how much she's getting), and then my husband rocks her.  It isn't working out so well for me to rock her because she continually grabs for my breasts and otherwise climbs all over me. Yesterday evening we had something of a breakthrough.  DH was getting frustrated because DD was chatting away and not settling down, so we decided to leave the room because I suspected the stimulation of our company was keeping her up. I was shocked at what happened next- after about five minutes of snuggling with her puppy stuffed animal, and gently saying "mommy" three times she laid her head down and feel asleep and slept straight through until 7:30 am.  I hope we can make this falling asleep independently a trend.  We'll see.  I'll post here again so other moms searching for this topic can see what happened in our case. This is not a baby who used to be anywhere near capable of the "put down drowsy and let them fall asleep on their own" school. She needed to be in a deep sleep to be put down once we stopped co-sleeping (at 13 mo) and wouldn't have been open to even the gentlest of pushes in that direction. This new ability comes as a shock to me, and makes me feel better about the potential loss of our nursing relationship as this pregnancy progresses.  I was worried that she really needed the milk to fall asleep, and I hated to take it away from her before she was ready to give it up.  Anyway, fingers crossed!